More Than Just a Pinpoint: Locative Media and the Chorographic Impulse, by Kim Sawchuk & Samuel Thulin

“This paper addresses the representational fiction of the pinpoint within the mapping processes associated with locative media art. These reflections on the pinpoint draw upon several locative media projects undertaken by the Mobile Media Lab over the past fifteen years as well as other locative media artists including Nikki Pugh, Paula Levine and Jeremy Hight. We examine a tension within locative media between the desire to precisely locate a place through the use of geographic coordinates, what David Bissell defines as a penchant for pointillist proximities, and the way that technologies, places and our interactions may only ever produce approximations. We ruminate on these approximations through the antiquarian concept of chorography, which emphasizes evocation and calls attention to creative forms of description as an alternative to mapping practices that seek to pinpoint locations within abstract, quantifiable space.”
[download .pdf file]

“Over the last decade the impacts of global mobilities have become increasingly visible in the parallel developments of locative media in art practice and a new mobilities paradigm in the social sciences. In 2006, in a special issue of Leonardo locative art was described as two broad areas of annotative and phenomenological practice. This paper uses the new ‘critical mobilities’ approach that has arisen in recent social science to suggest a broadening of those categories to include situated and embodied, mobile, relational, networked, experimental and multiple practices. I argue that this multiple, entangled and assembled description of locative media contributes to a new sense of ‘locative awareness’.”
[download.pdf file.]

(In preparation) Volume 3 of a three volume book project on how cities, cultures and economies change under the conditions of global complexity and reflexive modernisation. An outcome of the Networked Urban Mobilities conference, Copenhagen, November 2014.

Where the Sky Widens: An exploration of slow making and spatially-aware prototypes as methods for considering emotional connections to distant places.

Evaluative document (equivalent to a dissertation) for an MA final project.
[download .pdf file]

Exhibition Catalogue for Right Here Right Now at The Lowry

“A major new exhibition providing a thought provoking snapshot of contemporary digital art. Featuring the work of 16 international artists, Right Here, Right Now looks at how technology affects our lives – through surveillance, artificial intelligence, voyeurism or online dating.

Created in the last five years, their critical, playful and illuminating artworks challenge our understanding of the digital systems that surround us, while making visible those that are hidden. Prepare to re-think your increasingly connected digital life.”
[download .pdf file]

“In order to bring together our perspectives as researchers and educational practitioners with views from industry and experts in game design, we interviewed a number of experts in the games industry, creative industry, and academia. Key quotes from these interviews were selected for inclusion in the book, but here we provide the full interviews.”
[http://gamesbook.playthinklearn.net/pugh.htm]

My main area of enquiry is centred around interactions between people and place: often using tools and strategies from areas such as pervasive games and physical computing to set up frameworks for exploration.

If you'd like to commission me or collaborate with me, please get in touch via the contact page.

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Artworks and other projects copyright Nicola Pugh 2003-2018, all rights reserved.
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